ABSTRACT
Laughter is the only power that enables a fair fight against the damages caused by knowing the horrifying and unbearable in life. Clement Rosset is an eminent contemporary French philosopher who has attracted a cultish group of fans in Europe. Rosset rejects most philosophical theories of laughter in favor of his own view, which deems laughter tragic because it laughs at annihilation. However significant the role Rosset ascribes to laughter in the good life, laughter’s capacity for affirming and knowing the real is surpassed by the power of the graced joy of life. Rosset believes that he is Nietzsche’s sole disciple insofar as he devises a tragic philosophy based on affirming reality through the irrational joy of life. The comic and the tragic are identical for Rosset insofar as they describe the same reality and consider laughter as the adequate response to the tragic.
